Tre piani by Nanni Moretti – Official Compétition
20 years after the Palme d’Or for La chambre du fils, Moretti brings a non-original subject to the Festival.
Riccardo Scamarcio, Margherita Buy and Alba Rohrwacher: 3 families, 1 building of 3 levels and 3 levels of madness …
And the next Palme d’or !
#Cannes2021
Alicja has lost her memory and when her family recognises her on a TV show, she has to learn again to be a wife, a mother and part of a life she doesn’t remember nor particularly like.
But how and why did Alicja lost memory? Will she remember? Will she learn to love her son and her husband again?
Agnieszka Smoczyńska recalled me after the screening that the last time a movie of a Polish director was selected at Cannes it was 40 years ago and it was at the Semaine de la critique as well.
The entire cast was on stage after the screening at the Espace Miramar.
The movie is inspired by a true story of a Polish woman who was presented on a popular show of the Polish national TV in an attempt for someone to recognize her when she was found memory and paper-less on Warsaw’s metro.
Gabriela Muskała is very effective in rendering the rough and all but kind Alicja when she does not recall nor like her life or family.
But had you remembered your past life, wouldn’t you be tempted to start anew instead of resuming a monotonic life?
Agnieszka Smoczyńska gives her response in Fugue.
“En Liberté !” de Pierre Salvadori (Planetarium, Dans la cour, De vrais mensonges), won this year’s SACD Prize, the main award of the Quinzaine des réalisateurs. It will undoubtedly be a French blockbuster when it’s released in October. I’m less convinced by possibilities for an international distribution. It’s one of those comedies that Hollywood may want to copy and adapt to an American public.
The movie is very funny, extremely well edited and has a rich cast (Adèle Haenel, Pio Marmaï, Audrey Tautou, Damien Bonnard, Vincent Elbaz).
I particularly loved Pio Marmaï’s naive performance.
Yvonne (Adèle Haenel) is a police officer raising her child alone after the death of her husband, a policeman as well.
Every night she tells a story to her child before going to sleep. It always starts with the same door which is smashed by her husband who then fires his gun and with a few super hero moves kills all the bad guys.
But little by little she finds out that her husband wasn’t the good policeman she taught. And night after night the story she tells her child changes, transforming her husband from hero to scum.
She meets Antoine (Pio Marmaï), unfairly sent to jail by her husband, when he’s released from prison and tries to help a man thirsty of revenge.
One of the funniest movies seen at Cannes this year, Salvadori directs his rich cast to perfection delivering a convincing and funny comedy.
After the Beyrouth’s hairdresser salon of Caramel, and the sex strike and religion swap of the women in Where do we go now (her two excellent previous feature films), Labaki’s Capharnaüm in the Official Competition touches with a sweet and perfect touch the theme of abortion and excessive birth rate in the radically religious Middle East. The movie rapidly brings us to a Court where Zain is attacking his parents for having given him life without being able to guarantee him a decent life. But this is nothing but the end if the story while its most powerful part is the long journey of Zain who abandons his family at 12 and tries to survive in the streets of Beyrouth while having to take care all alone of an 18 months old baby.
Labaki directed the young Zain Alrafeea (non professional, as most of the characters, and at his first role) and the young baby in a magnificent way: Zain never smiles because his life has nothing cheerful.
The movie’s last images are also very carefully chosen, almost to demonstrate how long is the road ahead to improve the children’s situation in the big cities of the Middle East or of the world, and to suggest that even a movie like this won’t unfortunately change anything unless culture and consciousness raise.
Capharnaüm is one of my favourite movies of Cannes 2018. The movie has been followed by one of the longest round of applause of the Official Competition.
It deserved the Palme d’Or. In the first post-Weinstein festival, with a Jury lead by a politically implicated Kate Blanchett, where the fable womenisation of the film industry has been exposed by 82 women on the red carpet, giving the Palme d’Or to Nadine Labaki would have been “too much”. So the Jury decided for their own award: the Jury prize.
Don’t miss it when it comes to a theatre next to you in October.
At the closing ceremony of the 71st Cannes Film Festival, just before awarding the Best Actress prize, the Italian actress Asia Argento, one if the first to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse, gave a vibrant and shocking speech, leaving the audience in complete silence and, when she was finished, an explosion of applause.
Here is what she said.
“In 1997, I was raped by Harvey Weinstein here at Cannes. I was 21 years old. This festival was his hunting ground.”
“I want to make a prediction: Harvey Weinstein will never be welcomed here ever again.”
“He will live in disgrace, shunned by a film community that once embraced him and covered up for his crimes.”
“And even tonight, sitting among you, there are those that need to be held accountable for their conduct against women for behavior that does not belong in this industry, does not belong in any industry or workplace.”
“You know who you are. But most importantly, we know who you are, and we’re not going to allow you to get away with it any longer.”
MANBIKI KAZOKU (Shoplifters) directed by KORE-EDA Hirokazu
The Palme d’or was awarded by Cate Blanchett.
BLACKKKLANSMAN (Black Klansman)directed by Spike LEE
The Grand Prix was awarded by Benicio Del Toro and Chang Chen.
CAPHARNAÜM directed by Nadine LABAKI
The Jury Prize was awarded by Gary Oldman and Léa Seydoux.
Marcello FONTE in DOGMAN directed by Matteo GARRONE
The Best Performance by an Actor Prize was awarded by Khadja Nin and Roberto Benigni.
ZIMNA WOJNA (Cold War) directed by Pawel PAWLIKOWSKI
The Best Director Prize was awarded by Abderrahmane Sissako, Kristen Stewart and Denis Villeneuve.
Alice ROHRWACHER for LAZZARO FELICE (Happy as Lazzaro)
Jafar PANAHI for SE ROKH (3 Faces)
The Best Screenplay Prizes were awarded by Robert Guédiguian and Chiara Mastroianni.
Samal YESLYAMOVA in AYKA directed by Sergey DVORTSEVOY
The Best Performance by an Actress Prize was awarded Ava Duvernay and Asia Argento.
LE LIVRE D’IMAGE (Image Book) directed by Jean-Luc GODARD
GIRL directed by Lukas DONT
What a pity! No Palme d’Or but the best screenplay award of the 71st Festival de Cannes to Alice Roharwacher for Lazzaro Felice and to Nader Saeivar for Se Rokh.
2018.
Lukas Dhont receives the prize for his actor, who’s back at school the screening of the movie a few days ago.
Cannes Film Festival 